


Social Casualty

by 5sass (JackoffBaratwat)



Series: 10 Song, 10 Fics [2]
Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band), 5SOS
Genre: M/M, and the rest of the series, calum is cute, calum is the bartender, fun times, met in a bar, michael is a little rich boy, please read this, typical first meeting fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-07
Updated: 2016-06-07
Packaged: 2018-07-12 18:46:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7118122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JackoffBaratwat/pseuds/5sass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Michael has to make a tough decision, and the cute bartender helps him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Social Casualty

**Author's Note:**

> I really want to finish this series, so heres the second installment, finally!

Michael sat down at the seedy bar, throwing his coat under his seat, and ordering a double whisky and a rum and coke in record time. He barely had time to feel any self-pity before the bartender returned with his drinks, and he downed the whisky, receiving a raised eyebrow, but no comment from the server.  
"Another?" Michael just shook his head. He needed a subtle buzz, he needed to think about something other than his shitty position, not to get smashed. He couldn't even imagine the consequences if he turned up in front of his father hung over.

The bartender walked away to serve others, leaving Michael alone with his thoughts, which was a very dangerous game indeed.  
The red-headed boy put his head in his hands, thinking through his options.

His father, a very influential man in the business industry, selling... something to someone (Michael didn't know or care, why would he, he wanted to make music for a living) and he was also very insistent on Michael, his only child, inheriting his company. He wanted to train Michael, take him in as an intern, and turn him into the perfect son who followed in his foot steps perfectly.

There was only a few problems with this idea.

A prime example being, Michael did not have a bone in his body that was destined for retail. He was a musician, he had always been obsessed with music, listening and adoring until he finally had the balls to learn an instrument for himself. He chose the guitar (what a cliché) and saved up the wages from his shitty job at the ice cream parlour until he could buy himself one. And he'd played it until he had indentations in his fingers and cramp in his thighs from the dead weight of the wood. When he'd nailed the acoustic, he moved on to an electric, working his ass off for months and months until he could afford the damn thing, plus an amp and cables and a stand and adaptors. And again, his fingers hurt and he had perpetual cramp, but he was a fucking good player. Next came the bass, and more scrimping and saving. But he'd learnt to play thought determination and YouTube tutorials.  
He learnt to play the piano (he realised rather early on that he was never going to be able to buy himself a piano, so he settled for a keyboard, you say pot-a-to) and could play that sufficiently, he was no Mozart, but he got by.  
A more recent discovery was his ability to sing. He'd over heard a couple of kids at college talking about starting a bad two or so years ago, and finally jumped in. They were okay, shit could Luke sing, and Ashton was one of the best drummers Michael had ever seen, so when he was dicking about singing a chorus of a song they'd composed, and they said he was good, Michael had been hella surprised. But through Luke helping him, and again, his trusty YouTube tutorials, Michael liked to think he'd done as well as he could in this particular field without having vocal cord replacement.  
They were good together, Michael found himself surprised by this despite Luke, Ashton and his own musical capabilities, and even had a small following on their YouTube channel.  
They might have a chance.  
An actual shot at success.

Until his father, had laid down the bombshell that music wasn't actually a _real_  career, and if he wanted to meet a nice lady and settle down and have two-point-five children and a picket fence, he needed the means to support them.

Ironically enough, his father didn't know he was gay, either.

He'd then offered Michael a proposal, a proposition, a business deal. Because that was what he was best at, wasn't it?

"Come on, put in time at the company, complete the internship, and then make the decision. We're compromising."

But the internship was for five years, and by then, who knows, he could be touring the country, making money, better money that he would as a fucking intern, making music, making _memories_. Who wants to live their life and look back on their 'amazing internship' on their death-bed? Not him. Never him.

He'd told him no, of course, because he was an adult, he was twenty-one, he was capable of making his own decisions. He had his heart set on music, and his head agreed. It was what he knew.

So his father told him to leave.

"You're my _heir_ , Michael Gordon. I expected more respect and consideration from you. This is my company, I build it up from bricks and mortar, gave you a home and food with the money I made. And you're throwing it back in my face. To be a _guitarist_."  
He would never forget the way he spat the word at him, as if he desired to live out his days as a meth addict.  
"If you don't want to have a respectable profession, if you want to go down the path of 'sex, drugs, rock and roll', then I don't want you living under my roof while you waste your life."  
And Michael had been dismissed, the conversation obviously over.

So he'd walked out, found a rather shady looking bar, he was an _heir_ , don't you know, and ordered some drinks.

He took a heady swig of his Black Russian.

The bartender stopped in front of him, his tattooed arms bracing the bar. Michael met his eyes slowly. The man sighed.

"I usually don't do this, because it's either depressing as hell or boring as hell, but you look particularly, shit, _forlorn_ , so I'm gonna just do it." He took a deep breath. "Do you want to talk about it?"  
Michael just looked into the mans eyes for a few seconds, they were a really pretty shade of brown, as backwards as that sounded, and Michael found himself opening and closing his mouth like a fish.  
"Just daddy issues." He blurted. The man's face twisted into an amused grimace.  
"Care to expand?" Michael shrugged. The man's eyebrows furrowed.  
"Look, I get off in ten, and I kinda want to go home and have a nap, but I think talking might help you sort your 'daddy issues' out, so how about we have a drink together?" Michael smiled.  
"Okay." The man stereotypically wiped the bar down and threw the rag over his shoulder.  
"Right. I'm Calum."  
"Michael." Calum grinned and walked away.

Michael had finished the rest of his Black Russian by the time Calum emerged from the backroom, no longer wearing the all black ensemble Michael presumed to be his work uniform, but wearing a white sleeveless tank and black skinny jeans.  
"Want another drink?" Michael would be lying if he said he wasn't slightly distracted by Calum's muscular arms, but he managed to nod.  
"Same again?" Another nod.  
"Mali!" Calum yelled. A pretty girl with similar colouring to Calum himself appeared.  
"Yeah?"  
"Black Russian and a Corona." The girl nodded and tottered off.  
"Sister?" Michael asked once he found his voice.  
"Yeah. She's older but still lets me boss her around, bless her." Michael smiled.  
"You have any siblings?"  
"No, I'm an only one."  
"I bet that has its perks." Michael considered this.  
"Sometimes."  
"What do you do? For work?"  
"That's the million dollar question." Calum nodded.  
"So that's what's got you so bummed out. What's the story?"  
"My father wants me to take over his multi-million dollar company." Calum nodded.  
"And I'm guessing you're not a fan?"  
"Not at all. I want to pursue music, I'm good at it, if I do say so myself, and I want to make something out of it. I know I could. But he disapproves. As any typical rich man would of fun." Calum laughed as Mali came back with their drinks. Michael smiled at her as she handed him his. She smiled back and bounced away once more.  
"He sounds like a bit of an ass, if you don't mind me saying." Michael shrugged.  
"I think he just had this image of his head of how his son would be, and I'm just not it."  
"It sounds like it's his loss. Are you doing it then, the music route?"  
"I have to. I can't do what he wants me to. I'd be signing my life away for a very sad and unhappy life. Plus he'll definitely try to marry me away when I'm thirty."  
"Then do music. I know it's easy for me to say, I don't know your family at all. But from an outsiders perspective, your happiness is more important than his. Fuck him." Calum held his drink up, and a slow smile grace Michael's face. He tapped Calum's bottle with his glass.  
"Fuck him."

They ended up drinking a lot more than either of them wanted to.  
"Shit, man, I can't go home like this. My mum will oven roast me with a side of lemon." Michael cackled.  
"Come sleep at mine. I have a sofa in my room."  
"Pfft. Of course you do."  
"Asshole. Do you want somewhere to sleep or not?" Calum grinned.  
"Yeah. Thanks."  
"You gotta be quiet though, my old man will be in bed. Fucking Scrooge." The kiwi laughed.  
"Let's wake him up. Wake everyone up. Let's have a party."  
"That sounds awesome, but I think I'm burping up blood." Calum grimaced.  
"Home we go, spoil sport."

They took a taxi across the city, a forty dollar fare, bastards, and were back at Michael's house in twenty minutes.  
"Shit. This place is big. This is how I imagine Buckingham Palace to look." Michael snorted.  
"It's not _that_  big. It has got eight bedrooms, though. Who the fuck needs eight bedrooms.  
"Someone with eight kids."  
"Well, you're not wrong."

Michael stumbled putting his key in the door.  
"Mike." He turned.  
"What?" And then Calum kissed him.  
It was messy, ugly, evidently alcohol driven, but passionate and personal, and Michael gripped Calum's biceps, those gorgeous biceps that he'd been thinking about ever since Calum got off work, and Calum had a hand in his hair, which he desperately needed to dye, and they kissed, and kissed and kissed.

Michael put everything he had into it, his insecurities, his uncertain future, his difficult father, and soon Calum was against the wall and Michael was leaning into him and they were still _kissing_.

This was ridiculous, he'd known Calum for a matter of hours, he knew hardly anything about him as a person, but he found himself drawn to him. To his clothes so unlike anything he could wear himself, his tattoos, his accent, his caramel skin and the way he called him 'Mike' instead of 'Michael', like he wasn't a little rich boy inheriting millions, but just another boy, one he was _interested_  in, one he wanted to _kiss_ , and who Michael wanted to kiss back.

So they fucking did. Kiss, that was. Like their lives depended on it.

Until the door opened.

They broke apart, and Michael made eye contact with his father, still leaning into Calum, as he stood there in a pair of silk pajama bottoms and a dressing gown. He stared at Michael for a few meaningful seconds, before turning on his slippered heel and walking away, not looking back.

"Shit, Mike, I'm sorry, I wouldn't have-" Michael kissed him lightly on the lips.  
"I might have to deal with the fallout in the morning, but I don't regret it. You've done be a favour. I never would have had the balls to tell him otherwise." Calum nodded.  
"You still okay with me staying?"  
"Course." Michael took Calum's hand and lead him to his bedroom, where they promptly both passed out in Michael's bed.

  
When Michael woke up in the morning, his head was _pounding_.  
He was also acutely aware that his bed was occupied by another person, another _boy_ , and that it was Calum, the funny, pretty boy he'd met at the bar last night.  
He wanted to wake him up, go out for breakfast, actually get to know him, but he had something to do first.

He needed to see his father.

So Michael got out of bed, and padded over to his father's office, where Michael had no doubts he'd be, and opened the door.

He was there, sat at his desk, reading from a sheet of A4, unflinching when his gaze met his only childs.

"Michael."  
"Father." It was silent.  
"So," Michael ventured. "About last night." His father said nothing. Michael took a bracing breath.  
"I'm not working at your company. I don't want to do a five-year internship just for you to bully me into taking the job once it's done. I want to make music, write songs, play guitar, make mistakes, have fucking fun, because God knows I've never seen you look like you're having fun in your nine-to-five. I want more for myself. And I'm gay." His father just watched until Michael had stopped speaking. He sighed, resigned.  
"Your mother was an amazing singer." Michael's eyes met his fathers fast. "An incredible musician. That's probably where you get it from." His mother had died a decade before, of a cancer Michael knew nothing about.  
"I'm sorry that you see me as this, 'bully', but I was trying to think of your future. I was, really. But if it isn't what you want, I... respect that. I don't particularly like it or understand it, but I respect it. You're the only thing I have left, and I don't want to lose you just because I don't know how to relate to you." Michael's eyes were wide.  
"...Oh."  
"I met her at a festival." Michael choked on a laugh. His father laughed too. "I know. I did know how to have 'fucking fun' once, believe it or not. I was quite the David Bowie fan. And, about you being, gay. I'm saddened, of course, I would have liked a grandchild one day, but if that boy in your bedroom makes you happy, then I don't mind." Michael beamed.  
"Thanks dad." There was a pause.  
"So are you two... dating?" Michael groaned.  
"I only met him last night." His father raised his eyebrows.  
"You seemed to be well acquainted last night on the porch." Michael blushed.  
"I think we'll go out today, maybe. Get to know each other." His dad smiled.  
"Good." Michael smiled too, and went to leave.  
"Michael - I, your music is good. A coworker found your account, on YouTube, and you're good, the three of you." Michael grinned.  
"Thank you. That means a lot."  
"Go. Get to know your male friend." Michael left the office, unlike how he thought he would, laughing.

When Michael got back to his bedroom, Calum was sat up on his bed, typing on his phone. He smiled when he saw Michael.  
"My sister wanted to know if I was dead."  
"Tell her yes."  
"Okay." He typed, then put his phone down. There was a moment of silence.  
"So-"  
"I was-"  
They laughed. Calum spoke.  
"Wanna hang out today, see what happens?" Michael smiled.  
"Yeah, that sounds great."

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed this :)


End file.
